New friends and new opportunities

I had the opportunity to go with one of my friends Andrea (the Italian guy in the last photo)where he volunteers in a small town outside Cajamarca. he works with an NGO, that is actually run out of the house that we both live in. The families we worked with were wonderful. Once they found out i was from the US, all they did was ask me if i cold some back and teach them english. So, on wednesday, im headed back to give them copies of the pictures, try to teach them English, and take a few more pictures.

Peru

Well, I just got to Cajamarca, Peru a week ago after leaving Costa Rica. I am staying here for a month, trying to learn spanish and do my best to photograph this incredibly beautiful region located in the Northern Highlands region of Peru. I dont think its a region that receives a lot of attention as it is a 16 hour bus ride from Lima, where you enter the country. And probably 20+ hours from Machu Picchu, the place most people come to visit. There is an interesting mix of people, from the traditional campesiono's that live in the villages and farm but come into the city to sale their goods, to the young, progressive crowd of 20 somethings embracing more of a metropolitian lifestyle. Either way, the city of Cajamarca and its surroundings are full of culture and life.

Here are a few pictures from the last couple of days. They are somewheat surface level, as not speaking the language well, makes it difficult to really immerse yourself in a situation. Its a lot easier to explain why you are there and what your purpose is when you speak the same language as the people you are trying to photograph. Enjoy, and expect more to come.

A New Semester

Im sure its been so long since my last update that most of you stopped looking at my blog altogether, but im back at posting again now that im actually shooting again. Last semester i spent so much time looking at other peoples photography and devoting most of my time to being photo editor of the Herald that it didnt leave much, if any time to shoot. But one thing it absolutley did was make me wish i had the time to just go shoot. Not for class or anthing else but just for myself. And now that i have that time, and hopefully some more knowledge, im gonna shoot.

This first image is from the recent storms that passed through Ky and left thousands without power. To see more pictures and listen to some great audio go to www.chherald.com and please, PLEASE, check back here for more pictures to come.

Kohl

Tough Decisions

If you paid attention to the news at the right time last Wednesday, you might have noticed for a brief moment that there was a shooting at WKU. Reports of armed gunmen and shots fired were flying around the national media. This sent our campus into chaos and frenzy as swat teams and media crews converged at Western. For a long while we all believed there were gunmen on campus, thankfully it turned out to be somewhat of a false alarm. It was finally sorted out and believed to be a fight between 20 or so people that happened at 2 locations, and although several people came forward claiming to have seen/ heard gunshots, none were confirmed. Although the national media soon found that it wasnt jucy enough for the, it was still big news for our campus because of some of the events that happened while our school was on lockdown. The most significant being several students were detained at gunpoint in what could be described as overkill. When one girl said to a cop while he arrested her friend "You cant do that" he said, "If you want to be a part of this, ill make you part of this, and threw her on the ground" Thats our front page photo. It was a difficult decision after considering all of the great images, but the above layouts is how it ran in our paper. We chose the photo for the front because it best illustrated that confusion and chaos of the day. It also portrayed an event that hardly anyone on campus witnessed, and we felt was important. Overall our photographers did a great job and got the most story telling images possible. It was great practice for me as well because i found out just how stressful this job can be, but also how rewarding. And no one had to get shot.

Finally got to shoot a picture

This semester i have taken the job as photo editor for WKU's paper, the College Heights Herald. It all happened last minute, but has so far been an awesome experience. I have already learned stuff that i didn't expect to learn. Just the nature of editing hundreds of images a week is bound to help your photography in the long run, i hope. I will say one thing, spending all of my time watching my staff take great pictures, and not having the time to take any myself, has made me more eager than ever to pick up my camera. I did find some time this past saturday to shoot a feature at the football game Western played against Murray state.

I saw this group of young kids hanging outside of the rest of the crowd as everyone else passed by. They were so preoccupied with texting on their phones, that im not sure they knew there was a game going on. They were nice kids though.

Check out what were doing online at the Herald.

Young Bird, Old Hands

Where'd I park my horse?

This image is from a horse jumping competition. The interesting thing was that one of the courses was set up on top of a parking garage. Where else would you put all the horses but on the lower levels. I wonder if anyone forgot where they parked their horse.